Paris, Nicole and ‘The Simple Life’

No matter what happens in the world, I take comfort in knowing that The simple life exists. It harks back to an age of reality television that couldn’t be made today due to problematic treatment and/or life-ruining potential for the contestants, with shows like Wife swapping and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition– the things I would stay up late to watch with my dad when my mom was away. Life was, dare I say it, simpler back then: when unsuspecting people were exploited for sport, and everyone involved knew it was exploitation. Now we have the Lacheys of Netflix for that, but they pretend to help people. It hits differently, you know?

The simple life was peak exploitation reality because it did not exploit underdogs. Then 20-year-old Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie threw themselves into the fire of labor and came out looking ridiculous, all in the name of entertainment. For two months, they lived with a real family in Arkansas, worked real jobs like dairy farming and fast food, and generally wreaked havoc on hearts and minds, giving regular Joes everywhere permission to laugh at their misery before pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. to another hard day’s work. When the rich look stupid, everyone wins.

For the 20th anniversary of the show, the now 40-year-old Paris and Nicole reunited for Paris & Nicole: Encore. Now, however, they are adults and mothers, with 20 years of work and exploitation at the hands of paparazzi and tabloid media under their belts, so making a fool of themselves in a cornfield was not in the cards. If you want it, go and see Crappie Lakefeaturing former New York Housewives Sonja Morgan and Luann de Lesseps — the Paris and Nicole of their Upper East Side socialite generation — who are always down to embarrass themselves for money. I think about Luann emerging from the murky lake and hoisting a catfish over her head triumphantly, frankly, far too often.

No, Paris and Nicole already have enough money. This time they returned to Arkansas with their tails between their legs, hoping no one was still mad at them, even though they had very good reason to be. Like the producer who almost got arrested when Nicole hijacked a police car, or the dairy farmer who had to deal with the health department when they spilled too much milk, or the bar owners who had to replace their pool table after Nicole spilled bleach all over it. that in a fit of drunken rage.

Of the three-episode special, only the first saw the ladies back in Arkansas. The family they lived with all those years ago agreed to meet with them and reminisce, but they didn’t want to be filmed. The mayor was very gracious for five minutes and took a picture with them in front of fake street signs with their names. The guy Nicole was dating 20 years ago has a wife now! All is forgiven, including the pool table incident, which Nicole volunteered to reimburse. It could have stopped there, but for some reason it didn’t. Instead of making fun of themselves by doing manual labor, they decided to make fun of themselves by doing…opera.

One of the motives for The simple life is a little inside joke of a song that Paris and Nicole sing to each other. “Sanasa” is a word they came up with when they were kids and the melody followed from there. “It’s like a mood check,” says Richie.

Apparently, the song captured the hearts of fans so much that the duo decided it would be the focus of their reunion and staged an operatic theatrical version of the story of their friendship, complete with young actors playing their younger selves, a choir and a handful TikTok Personalities. “The Sanasapera” was a fever dream of electronic imagery and death-defying feats, like Paris and Nicole descending from the ceiling of the theater in ballgowns, and a celebration of a hard-won, heartwarming friendship.

In other words, everyone looks silly and everyone has fun, so everyone wins. Alan Cumming tells it all too, so what have you got to lose?